I recently stumbled across the Royal Armouries digital exhibition for the 500th anniversary of the Field of Cloth of Gold event held back in 1520 between the English and the French over in France.
The digital exhibition drew on items within the Royal Armouries extensive collection, and sources located elsewhere to determine the role armour/weapons played within the Field of Cloth of Gold event, and how they were used by Henry VIII and Francis I to display their great wealth and status, and their respective courtiers/entourages, within the subsequent tournaments etc.
A link to the digital exhibition is here if you want to check it out: https://royalarmouries.org/tudor-power-glory/
My previous knowledge of Henry VIII's existing armour was that of his 1540's garniture armour and his heavily decorated and intricate field armour from around 1510-1520 housed within the White Tower of The Tower of London (it remains to this day one of my favourite items associated with Henry). Therefore this digital exhibition was a breath of fresh air for me in terms of providing me with items associated with Henry VIII that I hadn't seen previously. The exhibition allowed me to examine these items up close from the comfort of my own home, and the sense of awe I felt knowing that they were used, or were mostly likely to have been used at the Field of Cloth event - well, it just blew my mind! Almost overwhelmingly so!
Normally exhibitions have an accompanying book of some kind, and having been blown away by the sheet brilliance of the digital exhibition I decided to buy the book. I hoped the book would be as informative as the exhibition, and contain close ups of the armour/weapons etc. I parted with my money and it arrived through my letterbox a couple of days later.
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| Front Cover - Image copyright of ‘A Tudor Wardrobe Examined’ |
The book itself is short, being a grand total of 68 pages, and having been split into 8 chapters. Which are:
1. Introduction
2. Background
3. The Negotiations
4. Greenwich and the Development of the Armourer's Craft
5. The Preparations
6. The Feat of Arms
7. Tiltyard Diplomacy
8. Conclusion
I read the whole book in just over an hour. It's very informative, providing me with some information that wasn't contained in the exhibit (which is good) and it is extremely well illustrated as I had hoped. I believe illustrations are so important in helping an audience understand the subject being written about. The price of the paperback book is £7.99. Which I think is a reasonable price given the amount of information it gives you and the illustrations.
I can't fault the book in anyway and it will remain a great addition to my ever growing book shelf. I am giving it an overall score of 5/5.
If you are interested in buying this book, it can be purchased here (an e-book is also available at a cheaper price):
https://shop.royalarmouries.org/collections/royal-armouries-publications/products/tudor-power-glory
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